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Learning While Laughing
Understand the Value of Play
By Kelly Burgess
Kelly Jenkins of Petaluma, Calif., says she's noticed her twin toddlers pretending to tuck each other in and feed each other. "I'm not sure, but I think they're playing house with each other: one being the parent, one being the baby," she says.
Kostelc says Jenkins is probably right. "Pretend play is really starting in this toddler time, as early as a year or so, in a very simple way," she says. "It may be as basic as pretending to drink from a cup or using a toy telephone or even a hairbrush as a phone. It's very fleeting, but the child is representing something they see."
Pretending is representational thought, Kostelc says. In other words, it's the ability to actually have a mental representation of something you've seen or experienced. Later it can also be something you make up, but toddlers don't yet have that ability to imagine, so they very often pretend play those activities of daily life they see, such as eating, sleeping or putting a doll to bed.
This pretending is part of cognitive development and helps toddlers develop important skills for reading. When they learn to speak and later read, they'll learn that words represent things, actions or events.
There are important social skills involved in pretending, as well: taking turns, making conversation and forming a sequence of events. These skills will help them to interact appropriately with others and understand the concepts of planning and executing.
While most toddler play is unintentional learning, it is possible to use play to teach in a more targeted manner. Since the 1980s it has been recognized that even hearing children can learn sign language at a very young age.